NEW YORK — World No.6 Jessica Pegula advanced to her first major semifinal after ousting No.1 Iga Swiatek 6-2, 6-4 at the US Open on Wednesday night.
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Pegula ended her much-publicized drought in Grand Slam quarterfinals, where she was previously 0-6. She joins Emma Navarro to put two Americans in the US Open semifinals for the second consecutive year.
“I would like to say I’m so happy that you guys cannot ask me about making it to the semis,” Pegula said at the start of her press conference. “It wasn’t even a me thing. It was more people asking me. I’m really happy to be through to the semifinals.
The victory is Pegula’s fourth career win over Swiatek and first since the 2023 Omnium Banque Nationale. She joins Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina and Barbora Krejcikova as the only players to notch four wins over the Pole.
“I thought I played a really clean match, served pretty well, returned well,” Pegula said. “I feel like I didn’t really do anything that bad, and was able to kind of jump on her really early and I think frustrate her, and was able to keep my level even when she picked it up in the second set.”
Pegula will face last year’s semifinalist Karolina Muchova for a spot in her first major final. Muchova returned to the semifinals after defeating Brazil’s Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-1, 6-4 earlier in the day.
Tale of the tape: Pegula, the 30-year-old Buffalo native, has now won 14 of her past 15 matches after winning her second title of the season last month at the National Bank Open in Toronto and finishing as runner-up at the Cincinnati Open. It has been a remarkable summer surge for Pegula, who was forced to skip four WTA 1000s in the first half of the year as well as the French Open with an injury.
In their first meeting of the season and first since the 2023 WTA Finals in Cancun, Pegula dominated the opening set from the first game. Neither woman had yet to lose a set in New York, but in their 10th career meeting it was the American who came out sharper.
“I think today I wanted to come out playing the way I wanted to play,” Pegula said. “I had an idea in my mind of what I learned from the last time I played her at Finals and play kind of within myself and then just see where she was at.
“I could tell right away she was frustrated on the serve.”
How the match was won: Swiatek had not faced a break point in her last…